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Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Bus Envy, or Yours is Bigger Than Mine

I’ve developed a craving for one of those accordion buses. They’re almost twice as long as a regular bus – that’s gotta be twice as satisfying, right?

The urge for a bigger bus came the morning of the first.

That’s yesterday, if you’re keeping score at home.

The first of the month is a very special time in many people’s lives. There’s money, after all, on the first, if only for a few minutes. In my experience those minutes come between receiving a check for a job well done (or the check you receive before they catch on to the fact that you’re not much of a worker, or the check you receive from the government) and writing another check (or five) for rent, utilities, books, beer, and other must-have items.

Which brings us to the bus.

The dead bolt to my front door refused to lock Monday morning for reasons it did not disclose. It took forty-five minutes of sweating, swearing, and seriously considering calling in to work “disgusted” before the door was locked.

And I had dramatically missed my usual bus.

You know, you think you know a bus after riding it for six years. You think you know the drivers, the faces of your fellow commuters. Generally speaking, the people on the 7:15 are all going to work.

The folks on the 9:00 did not have the look of work about them.

My fellow riders were loud and unconfined by societal expectations. Speculation as to where they were headed dressed in pajama bottoms and sleep in their eyes we shall leave to the professionals.

Normally, I’m a firm believer in listening in on other people’s conversations, particularly if avoiding them means turning up my iPod to levels likely to induce ear-bleed. The normal commuters do not spend a lot of time on the phone, preferring to stare blankly out the window, so my listening in on the myriad calls going on at one time promised to be a treat. They were, however, not a treat, and the following conversation is actually a conglomeration of the five or six cell phone conversations that went on around me.

To get the full effect, it’s best delivered at the top of your lungs.

“Where you at? HUH? Where you at?”

As a quick aside, the phrase “where you at” is the quickest way for me to stop paying attention, but I persevered.

“What? No, he trippin’. Him and Trina/Ray-Ray/Boo/Mary Elizabeth be out at the clubs and I KNOW he ain’t tryin’ to tell me he ain’t! I’m gonna take care of my own, you hear what I’m sayin’? I’m gonna get PAID and he the one gonna pay me.”

I lost consciousness momentarily while these sentences were repeated in varying permutations.

“She best watch her back, that’s all I’m saying. What? No, he don’t. NO HE DON’T! Hold on a sec, I got another call.”

She then went on to answer her other line and spent the next several minutes bringing the new person up to date.

I thought it would get interesting at some point, but it didn’t. After all, there may have been reasons around all those stained, baggy pajama bottoms. There may have even been reasons behind the wild hair, the just-rolled-out-of-bed-and-into-boots look.

But she didn’t go into any of that.

I’m telling you. She either coughs up the “why’s” of the situation, or I’m putting in for a bigger bus.

22 comments:

I also find that if I remove words like "are" and "will" from my sentences that I can communicate more in a shorter period of time. Of course that conversation will never get interesting, or accomplish anything - that's why she's on the 9:00 bus.

You are a great conversation rememberer. I guess that comes with being the pro eavesdropper that you are. Nothing like adding a little texture to your life (and ours) by getting acquainted with a new bus crowd.

I thought you'd finish your rant about the bigger bus by saying size doesn't matter..at least that what we've been told..Listening in to phone calls is just never as interesting as you first think it will be huh? Seems most people have even more boring lives than I do...poor things!Perhaps you could brighten their day by going into detail about some bank robbery you had planned while talking into your inoperative phone?

Yup..just like you 7:15ers to judge us 9-11:23ers who like to sit on the folds of the acordian bus. You are just too uptight and squaresville daddy-o for that seat. I can see you judging me with your clean underware and healthy bag lunch. And that smell you are smelling - yeh, that is coming from me. But us late busers don't look at someone who may just have a MEDICAL SMELL PROBLEM with such distain. If you cut us, do we not bleed? And YES, that is blood on my tshirt from last night. Now if you will excuse me I have to make a call on my walkman to my BOO who is also my Baby Momma. Peace Out!

It's bad enough having the too-much-flesh-on-display-despite-acres-of-crimpelene tottering round the aisles indecisively for hours while they yabber on their phones until they finally fall out of the door at the front of the bus. The bendy buses give you a choice of exits, the one to be opened at the discretion of the driver. It's funny the first time, but palls quickly after that.